In 2012 Green Cities Fund sponsored a visit to Cuba by West Coast chefs to encourage and support Cuba’s sustainable food movement. The trip inspired the further development of sustainable farming in Cuba and related projects.

Chefs who went to Cuba hope to do the same in Puerto Rico.  They include Samin Nosrat and Narsai David. They are planning a similar visit to hurricane and Trump battered Puerto Rico to build alliances and support the island’s nascent sustainable food movement.

Also helping is Tamar Adler who wrote an article on Puerto Rico’s sustainable food movement in Vogue.

If you wish to join the chefs, support their work and foster solidarity between those struggling to make Puerto Rico, where 70% of the food is imported, food self-sufficient,  complete a custom tour application.

In June of 2019 Green Cities Fund was a fiscal sponsor of an International Gathering for Social and Solidarity Economy on Puerto Rico.

In July of 2019 Green Cities Fund sent former Chez Panisse chef and owner of Cosecha Restaurant in Oakland and farmer and food aficionado Lissy Donovan to Puerto Rico to establish connections with Puerto Rico’s nascent sustainable agriculture movement.  It could not have been a more opportune time, in the middle of the popular uprising against the corruption of the elite who control the Puerto Rico economy in partnership with U.S. interests resulting in an unemployment rate of over 40%, massive debt and millions fleeing the country over decades.  Green Cities Fund will be organizing further educational visits to Puerto Rico.  Let us know if you are interested by completing this application.

Meanwhile, learn more by reading Naomi Klein’s “The Battle For Paradise” and “War Against All Puerto Ricans” by Nelson Denis.  Also, if you have access to CNN, YouTube or Amazon Prime, comedian Kamau Bell has an excellent segment on Puerto Rico in his superb series “United Shades of America”.